TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

LANGUAGE. 333
huliz appears elsewhere as hulizhialmr, OS. lielith-helm, a tarn-
helmet, grima, mask, which wraps one in like a mist or cloud. Of
course the Teutonic tongue could offer several other words to stand
for cloud, beside those six ; e.g., nifl, OHG. nebal, Lat. nebula, Gr.
ve^eX-rj ; Goth, milhma, Swed. moln, Dan. mulm ; Sansk. megha,
Gr. o/u^X?7, o/AixXij, Slav, megla ;
OHG. wolchan, AS. wolcen, which
ON. J?oka nebula,
is to Slav, oblako as miluk, milk, to Slav, mleko ;
Dan. taage M.Dut. swerk ; nubes, OS. gisuerc, caligo, nimbus AS.
;
hoSma nubes, Beow. 4911. And so it is with the other twelve
objects whose names are discussed in the Alvismal. Where simple
words, like sol and sunna, mani and skin, or iord and fold, are
named together, one might attempt to refer them to different
dialects : the periphrases in themselves show no reason (unless
mythology found one for them), why they should be assigned in
particular to gods or men, giants or dwarfs. The whole poem
brings before us an acceptable list of pretty synonyms, but throws
no light on the primitive affinities of our language.
Plato in the Cratylus tries hard to understand that division of
Greek words into divine and human. A duality of proper names,
like Briareos and Aigaion, reminds us of the double forms Hler and
Oegir (p. 240), Ymir and Oergelmir, which last Sn. 6 attributes to the
to be an Elvish
Hrimjwrses ; ISunn would seem by Saem. 89 ar
word, but we do not hear of any other name for the goddess. In
the same way Xanthus and Skamander, Batieia and Myrina might
be the different names of a thing in different dialects. More
interesting are the double names for two birds, the %a\/a9 or
Kv/uLivSw (corif. Plin. 10, 10), and the atero? and Trepicvos. Xa\/ci<;
is supposed to signify some bird of prey, a hawk or owl, which does
not answer to the description opins \<,<yvpd (piping), and the myth
requires a bird that in sweet and silvery tones sings one to sleep,
like the nightingale. Ilepicvos means dark-coloured, which suits
the eagle ; to imagine it the bird of the thundergod Perkun, would
be too daring. Poetic periphrases there are none among these
Greek words.
The principal point seems to be, that the popular beliefs of
Greeks and Teutons agree in tracing obscure words and those
departing from common usage to a distinction between divine and
human speech. The Greek scholiasts suppose that the poet,
holding converse with the Muses, is initiated into the language of